Engl build quality/reliability

[glassjaw7]

Ok, serious question here and I'm NOT trying to stir up any drama or bash Engls. I really liked the Engl Invader I played a few months back and now I'm drooling over the Retro, thanks to Jason's iphone demo. BUT, I've heard all the stories of poor build quality and even a couple friends have told me about reliability issues, parts coming loose, even shit going up in smoke...not sure if that's just internet rumor being passed along or truth.

I know Brad is now an Engl dealer, so I really don't want to give anything/anyone a bad name here. Just really loving the Retro vibe and want to hear about my fellow Rig-Talkers' experiences with Engl on the road, in the studio, etc.

 

[killertone]

I have said it before and I'll say it again...gigged my Blackmore hard for 3 years in shitty clubs all over TX and never had one single problem with it. I also have a friends who have ENGLs and they have never had one problem with them and they are both heavy giggers.

I know others have had problems but I think percentage wise it is just like any other amp company, actually maybe less.

 

[Digital Jams]

I have said it before and I'll say it again...gigged my Blackmore hard for 3 years in shitty clubs all over TX and never had one single problem with it. I also have a friends who have ENGLs and they have never had one problem with them and they are both heavy giggers.

I know others have had problems but I think percentage wise it is just like any other amp company, actually maybe less.

Bro Basements are no joke.........................

Spiders.
Cobwebs.

Dont even get me going with photo ops..........................shit can and will happen when that lens cap comes off.

Milspec or nothing, never know when I may bring my amp to an ampfest while in Iraq.

 

[benduncan]

I had an Invader 150 for a couple of years and didn't have any problems with it. I gigged it a couple of times but mainly used it for home recording. Don't be fooled though! My cab was in an iso box and I had the master cranked

 

[Ah Via Musicom]

My ENGL has been very reliable for the last 3 years too. Never had one problem out of it and i have played it A LOT. I will probably wind up buying that retro tube 100 aswell.

 

[Audioholic]

My little engl gigmaster has been Rock solid for the past 2 years or something

 

[kloppsta]

hmmm yeah well i havent owned enough ENGL's range to put out a flat generalisation but the 3 that i did own gave me problems.

Ive had 2x ENGL Screamer 50 Heads and and a Powerball. The first screamer 50 crapped out 2 months after buying it new. i look after my gear so it was not abused in any way. it just died on me. turned out to be a faulty PT. Got that fixed and it went ok, then i got an offer to swap the screamer 50 and one of my guitars for a Powerball which i did. The powerball went ok for a while but then started this weird hissing sound when the MV was up over 9'oclock. replaced tubes a couple of times, tried different cabinets, guitars, cables etc. just wouldnt go away. took it to my tech who basically said he didnt wanna even go near the ENGL because of all the PCB/SM stuff....so in the end i sold the powerball as is for next to nothing. despite my reservations at that point i did grab another screamer 50 head again cause i actually liked the sound, size and features of that amp. got bit again!! it died on me about a year later and this time round it turned out to be a faulty OT. i got the OT re-wound and it went ok but never sounded the same. My tech basically wouldnt touch the ENGL's because at least in the screamer 50 anyway the PCB was covered in "goop" on the circuit board making it really hard to work on.

So yeah.....i wouldnt go there again personally. Thats not to say ive never had problems with other brands. ive had a few troublesome marshalls, peavey's and even a mesa. only amp ive NEVER had a problem with is my Diezel VH4 and ive owned that the longest and its had the most use. What can i say....i think there may have been a turning point for ENGL when they went from a small "botique" company into a mass-production power house trying to compete at the "big boy" level (i.e. Marshall, Peavey, Fender etc) I think at that time their "quality control" became an after thought....perhaps it became about quantity, not quality? But hey....thats just my 2c based on my own experiences. there are plenty of dudes using ENGL....even big name artists (although big $$$ endorsement offers probably have a lot to do with that)

Anyway....i guess you just gotta take the plunge if you like any amp and hope for the best!

 

[Les Zombie]

I owned 10 engls and 7 of those i purchased brand new, 3 of them had issues, my invader 150 brokedown the first night i owned it, my engl se brokedown a little over a year after i bought it and engl wouldnt pay for the repairs and i had a powerball that had issues, none of the amps was gigged with either, after dealing with velvet distribution i have decided i dont wanna buy anymore engls and sold all of them, theres a guy on hc right now who has a blackmore and it brokedown and was smoking.

NONE OF MY ISSUES WAS TUBE RELATED.


I know theres alot of guys on rt that played engls for years and never had any issues but i wasnt so lucky, it left a bad taste in my mouth when i bought a 4000 amp and it had a 1 yr waranty and after that year was up they wouldnt do shit for me. Im sorry if this offends anybody but that was my experience.

 

[King Guitar]

Hey Guys,

You can post good and bad and you will not offend me, I want my customers to be thrilled with the gear they get from me regardless. I did allot of checking as well and I think they have their issues in the same way all of the manufactures do including my own Cameron line. I can tell you that if you get anything from my shop Engl, Diezel, 3 Monkeys whatever...If you have a problem with the amp I have a problem with the amp and I will go to bat for you to resolve it with any manufacture. Being that I/We have a large worldwide voice here on the RT any issues will be addressed quickly by any maker.

We are family here, if my brother gets punched I will punch back with you.

 

[Shiny_Surface]

Reliability and build quality don't necessarily go hand in hand but often do (imo).

You can have a grail TGP PTP amp be horribly unreliable and a cheap flimsy pcb amp work night after night.

Having access to techs locally who can service the amp without shipping it off might be a consideration for some.

For some reason I'm reminded me of a monster thread on HCAF way back involving certain people critiquing opened up Engl SE chassis pics.

 

[BGG]

I giggged a Powerball two times a week for two years, not a single problem

 

[spirit7]

I had a Powerball which blew a transformer, but ENGL replaced it for me outside the warranty, which was nice of them. Incidentally, a Marshall I had experienced the same issue so it may well be the electrics in our rehearsal studio.

Incidentally, ENGLs are brutal \m/ Love them. If we're talking reliability issues then Marshall should be the number one target...but no, because they are loved around here!

-C

 

[squank]

I've had great luck with my Engls. I gigged a Steve Morse head for about 6 months with no problems. Traded that for an SE, gigged that for a year clean. I'm on a PB II for the past 9 months as my main amp for my original band, and it's been perfect, too.

Spam warning - you can hear that Powerball tomorrow night by coming out to our show in Chesterfield, MI

 

[Les Zombie]

Hey Guys,

You can post good and bad and you will not offend me, I want my customers to be thrilled with the gear they get from me regardless. I did allot of checking as well and I think they have their issues in the same way all of the manufactures do including my own Cameron line. I can tell you that if you get anything from my shop Engl, Diezel, 3 Monkeys whatever...If you have a problem with the amp I have a problem with the amp and I will go to bat for you to resolve it with any manufacture. Being that I/We have a large worldwide voice here on the RT any issues will be addressed quickly by any maker.

We are family here, if my brother gets punched I will punch back with you.

I had one of my engl dealers call and speak to velvet distribution when my amp broke down after 14 months and he explained to tyme that i was a good customer and bought alot of amps but it did no good, they still wouldnt warranty the amp, hopefully things have changed in the last 2 yrs, good luck brad and i know your a standup guy and will be a great dealer, i hope you never have to deal with any issues and most of all i hope you make alot of cash and make people happy with their new amps.

Btw i just found out my esp hookup is going out of business, so if i need any esp stuff you will be one of the first dealers i call.

 

[sinfish]

I have had no issues with my 530 preamp. I have had it for about 2 years.

 

[Gsxrbusa]

I have had quite a few Engls over the years and I finally have the one that makes me most happy (EL34 SE). All the problems I have had were either my own fault or a tube or cable. Never the amps fault. So, I think they are plenty reliable.

To elaborate on "my own fault", I would remove a power tube on my Invader 150 to gain axcess to the pre amp tubes, no room to get at them otherwise. I went to install the power tube back in one day after changing some pre amp tubes,when I folded over one of the tube socket terminals. Son of a bitch!!!!! That will teach me to remove the chassis before attempting to install a power tube. Anyway, I contacted Mike Berger(spelling?), I beleive he is our US Engl rep dude. I ordered 6 new power tube sockets and had them in less than a week. My local tech installed them and it was running like a champ. Great service is you ask me.

 

[the4thlast1]

Ive owned about 7 different ENGLs over the years...... I had one SE that had serious problems... I turned it on one day and smoke starting poring out of it. I had a very hard time finding someone who would even work on it, let alone fix it. Several amp techs didnt want to touch it because of the way ENGL mounts there pcb's..Pcbs are upside down, lots of small plastic clips and ribbon cables. Anyway to make a long story short, I got in touch with ENGL and they recommended me to a place in Florida called Alpha Kinetics, the dude there knew all about Engls and how to fix them but it seems to be one of the few places in the U.S. that does. The whole thing was a nightmare, cost me over $500.

So that was 1 amp out of 7 I had so who knows. I cant say they are any worse than other amplifier companies as far as reliability. What I can say is that the way they are constructed is not your typical tube amp design and a lot of people who know how they are built shy away from working on them.

 

[rupe]

My buddy's store sells ENGL and he's never had any service issues. On the other hand, he just gave Mesa the boot due to a horrible service record and lame dealer support (among other things).

 

[Les Zombie]

Gary at alpla kinetics is great, he used to do repair work for derekb when derek sold engls and was the only engl dealer in the usa, i wished i had just sent my engl se to him instead of letting the service center in maryland work on it. I was at alpha a few times and gary can fix anything.

For about 5 yrs engl was my fav brand and i praised them and loved the tone, i had people always asking me about them and i used to give my opinions and reviews and i helped sell close to 20 engls for a couple dealers. I would recommend them to friends and anybody who asked me about them, but that didnt matter when i had to deal with them when the engl se broke, engl in germany didnt answer any of my emails, and engl distribution velvet wasnt much help other than to tell me my 4000 amp has a 1 yr waranty and my amp was 14 months old, i had heard of how great they was with dealing with issues but they wouldnt pay 1 penny to help a fan and customer who helped sell around 20 of their amps.

The whole situation pissed me off and i was bummed because i wasnt gonna support a brand that didt appreciate me or care, when the dealer called he tried to get them to split the cost of the repair and they wouldnt even do that. So i decided to sell all my engls and play other brands.

Theres plenty of people that will never have a problem and they will enjoy the engl tone, i wished i was one of them but at this point its not gonna happen, instead of helping sell amps i ended up turning people away once they heard my story.

Now that brad is a dealer im not gonna bring up my bad experiances everytime theres a engl thread, i dont wanna piss him off and im pretty sure most people are sick of me talking about it.
So im gonna shut my mouth, things might have changed in the last couple years and gotten better.

 

[Inearthed]

I had a Powerball I, no issues. Still have a Blackmore and an E530, both have had no issues. Blackmore and Powerball were gigged and encountered no failures.